Surprise Billing Legislation: Update on Congressional Action
Two new bills to address the growing problem of surprise medical bills have passed key House committees. Writing on To the Point, Georgetown University’s Jack Hoadley and colleagues say the proposals would ensure that consumers won’t face additional bills beyond what they’d pay in cost-sharing for in-network providers. They differ, however, in how they would establish what insurers pay out-of-network providers.
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| | Health care sharing ministries look much like #HealthInsurance, but they’re not, and some of them can leave members vulnerable to unpaid medical bills.
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Health Care Sharing Ministries: How States Can Protect Consumers
Health care sharing ministries have been promoted by the Trump administration as an alternative to Affordable Care Act coverage. But while their offerings may look like regular insurance, many people enrolled in these arrangements are left with hefty unpaid medical bills. Georgetown University’s JoAnn Volk and colleagues explore actions states can take to protect consumers.
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Uncompensated Care Costs Likely to Increase Under Administration Move
President Trump issued a proclamation that would prevent some immigrants from entering the United States unless they purchase health coverage or demonstrate they have the resources to pay “reasonably foreseeable” medical costs. But Timothy S. Jost and Christen Linke Young write that the administration’s action would increase, not decrease, the rate at which recently arrived immigrants require uncompensated care, adding to the $35 billion a year spent on such care.
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The Value of Community Health Workers in New Mexico
New Mexico mandated in 2014 that all Medicaid managed care organizations directly hire or contract with community health workers to help overburdened primary care providers take on the challenges patients face in poor, underserved areas of the state. Sarah Klein and colleagues illustrate the ways these workers have been deployed in New Mexico to promote health, help provide culturally appropriate care, and tackle entrenched problems like unemployment and criminal recidivism.
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Putting Opioid Settlement Money to Work to Expand, Improve Addiction Treatment
As settlements are reached in many of the nation’s opioid-related lawsuits, attention has started to turn to how proceeds should be used to expand access to treatment for opioid use disorder. In a past issue of Transforming Care, we reported on efforts to incorporate addiction treatment services into primary care, from Vermont’s “hub and spoke” model to the “low-threshold care” program at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital.
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International Health Policy and Practice Innovations | |
Expanding Access to Reproductive Services Around the World
Pathfinder International is a nonprofit working with communities in 20 countries to expand access to birth control and other reproductive services. On The Dose podcast, Pathfinder CEO Lois Quam, a member of the Commonwealth Fund’s board of directors, talks about the challenges many adults face in deciding whether and when to have children — and how their lives change when they are able to make this choice.
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Minority Health Policy Fellow Named PCORI Director
Last month, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute named Nakela Cook, M.D., as its new executive director. Cook, a cardiologist and an alumna of the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy
, comes from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, where she has served as senior scientific officer and chief of staff. She will assume her new position on April 15. |
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